Dose:The daily dosage used in clinical studies is 100 mg of kava extract standardized to 70 percent kavalactones divided into three portions. People who are pregnant, nursing infants, or going through bouts of depression should avoid it, and it shouldn't be taken when driving or operating machinery.

Worth a try
While sleeping straight through for seven or eight hours may be the ideal, it's not necessarily the best sleep pattern for everyone. Some of my patients have had great success on only four hours of straight sleep, supplemented with a fifteen-minute rest or catnap after every subsequent four-hour period of wakefulness. The break can consist of a catnap, meditation, light exercise, or sipping a cup of tea--it's their choice. After the sixth of these work/break cycles, instead of the fifteen-minute break, they go to sleep again for four hours.

However, the six cycles take 25.5 hours, which doesn't fit neatly into the twenty-four-hour day. Still, some people feel that this extended day works best, and they make the odd readjustment here and there to fit in with society. They say that using the fifteen-minute breaks to catnap is key; they go quickly into a sound sleep and awaken feeling refreshed. Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill, and Florence Nightingale, all very very productive people, were known to have slept in four-hour cycles.

Foster, Steven. Herbs for Your Health. Loveland, Colorado: Interweave Press, 1996.
Willard, Terry. Herbs and their Clinical Uses. Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Wild Rose College of Natural Healing Ltd., 1996.